Sunday, December 08, 2013

Blog 10: Reluctance and Resistance

All
educators must deal with reluctance and resistance. It is extremely common in
every form of education, formal and informal. Many of the theorists we have read
have been interested in pointing out the problems with the education system;
the theorists point out that these problems tend to arouse sentiments that tend
to lend themselves to worsening the learning of the student. Especially when
the problems of power become apparent and the relationship between the teacher
and the student is often when students begin to disengage. I have had
experience with this in the writing center, and it has been one of the hardest
things for me to face, as I have also been on the resisting and reluctant side
of this issue, and I don’t know if my concerns were ever resolved nor that I
can fully resolve any of the student’s. The best we can do is let them know
that we are their advocate whether through our actions or through our

The
occasions when I most often experience reluctance and resistance in the tutoring
center is when I am helping a student who feels that they are either forced to
come to the writing center and don’t require any assistance and the students
who feel that they have received or are receiving bad grades from a professor
when they feel that they are superb writers. Often times, these students can be
calmed down by just suggesting that there are things that we always need to
work on, but there are many cases where the students are simply in a state of
anger.

It is often
the case that when a student is experiencing this sort of anger or frustration,
it is probably not going to result in an excellent tutoring session. Often times
these students are combative or even, in many cases, withdrawn from the
session. These are the students who will answer texts during a session, talk on
the phone, stare at the wall, etc.

I address
combative behavior often by spending more time on single issues addressing the
disputed points and giving the tutee credit where credit is due and explaining
the concepts where it would be helpful. With disengaged students, I have taken
the advice given by other tutors to mimic their behavior; I will sit back in my
chair and wait for them. Oftentimes I decide that I might write that the
student was actively disengaged during the session, but so far, the mimicking
tactic has worked and brought tutees back into the session although I sometimes
cannot change their attitude.

I think the
most important part is to respect them and know that they may be having a bad
day or may be in over their head; however, respect for the tutee cannot
override respect for ourselves as tutors. It is important to stand our ground
and let students know that we are there for their benefit, not our own, despite
what our paychecks say. I do think that genuine care for the tutees tends to be
the game saver when a session seems to be taking a wrong turn or is coming under
pressure. When the tutee senses that you genuinely want to help them do their
best, I think they are very grateful and they have a very hard time continuing
to be hostile. Overall, I think a mixture of these strategies can overcome
these sentiments, and I hope that in the future the education system begins
redesigning itself to not create them in the first place, granted some things
are unavoidable.